The US quickly turned Russia’s February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine into a US proxy war against Russia. But decades prior, US anti Russian provocations, expanding NATO relentlessly up to Russia’s borders, and overturning a Russian leaning Ukraine government, initiated that proxy war upon the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The road to invasion escalated in 2008 when the US floated NATO membership to Ukraine and Georgia. That was a red line of provocation to Russia they’ve been warning us to withdraw now for 14 years.
The past eight, beginning with the US inspired and supported coup against Russian leaning Ukraine president Victor Yanukovych in 2014, have been a virtual demand by the West for Russia to attack. That was because it unleashed a civil war between the new central government and Russian speaking Ukrainians in the Donbas. To unify Ukraine under a pro West, anti Russian national identity, the Donbas Ukrainians were brutalized, indeed murdered by the US brokered anti-Russian government elevated to power by that coup. Coupled with the threat of NATO placing weapons and troops on Russia’s borders, Russia framed the crisis as an existential threat they decided, after years of warning, to defend against.
This makes current US support for Ukraine simply a continuation of the proxy war against Russia going back to that 2014 coup. Rather than save Ukraine lives, it sentences thousands more to a needless death so the US can inflict a defeat upon Russia.
A sensible policy would promote negotiations to achieve a neutral, NATO free Ukraine to protect Russia’s borders, and autonomy for Donbas to end Ukraine central government warfare upon those beleaguered Ukrainians.
The people of European NATO countries and the US understand this, which explains their Ukraine war fatigue. They understand the war has no connection to their national self-interests, nor that of any other country outside of Ukraine. They further realize Ukraine could easily have avoided attack had they simply rejected NATO overtures and refrained from waging war against their own people on Russia’s border.
Indeed, the now likely endless proxy war driving up gas, food and other prices results from their governments boxing them into a war that can’t be won short of nuclear destruction, much less one that should not have been provoked in the first place.
The sensible citizenry will never heed the false claims of their governments which have squandered their credibility with lies, erasure of pertinent facts and hysteria of a new Hitler, Stalin world conqueror to eradicate.
Western citizen Ukraine war fatigue is here to stay. Time for Ukraine war fatigue to reach US and Western European governments to set up the negotiating table for sensible, compromise fostering diplomacy.
Walt Zlotow became involved in antiwar activities upon entering University of Chicago in 1963. He is current president of the West Suburban Peace Coalition based in the Chicago western suburbs. He blogs daily on antiwar and other issues at www.heartlandprogressive.blogspot.com.
Re “The sensible citizenry…” This reminds me of a story about Adlai Stevenson when he was running against Eisenhower.
A voter: “Senator Stevenson, every thinking person in America will vote for you.”
Stevenson: “Well that’s very nice ma’am, but I need a majority.”
I would argue that spending billions arming terrorists in Syria was also part of this same New Cold War. Major escalations of spending took place not long after Russia came to Assad’s defense, the intention of that spending was the same as this is, it’s to force Russia into fighting us via proxies.
There was a brief moment when this New Cold War could have been avoided, that was when Trump stopped arming the Jihadis. He continued to arm the Kurds but they were not using those arms to kill Russians, the “moderate rebels” were. But they impeached Trump for not sending weapons to Ukraine fast enough and then the flood gates opened on both offensive weapons and training. Once Biden took office and appointed Blinken and Neuland, that was it, the war was assured and so will the trillions in New Cold War spending.
The writing was on the wall during Obama’s term that the war on terror was a dud and the neo-cons were already pivoting back to the cold war for their masters in the “defense” industry. Trump put a brief pause in their plans and all that accomplished was allowing both Russia and Ukraine to better prepare.
We lecture the world on how Russia is in violation of international law but there was no real international law in Syria or Ukraine. And Both of these wars can be traced back to illegal actions taken by the US, not just Ukraine.
The good news is that the west may offer an ultimatum to Ukraine. If they cannot hold on to slovyansk, they will cease all military and financial-political support.
Jul 19, 2022 Russia’s Putin arrives in Iran for talks on Syrian conflict, Ukraine grain
In his first trip outside the former Soviet Union since the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Iran for a summit with his Iranian and Turkish counterparts on Syrian conflict, Iranian state TV said on Tuesday.
https://youtu.be/YgjbU9bS70A
Putin’s Mideast trip is much better than Biden’s Mideast trip. It’s good Russia has troops in Syria to protect its sovereignty while the US, UK & France have troops there to violate its sovereignty like it did in Libya. If the Russians were not there, the US would have killed Assad like it did Gaddafi.
You are absolutely spot on target friend!
“The people of European NATO countries and the US understand…the war has no connection to their national self-interests, nor that of any other country outside of Ukraine. They further realize Ukraine could easily have avoided attack had they simply rejected NATO overtures and refrained from waging war against their own people on Russia’s border.”
1/ As reported by Antiwar, it is true that a poll showed more citizens favoring ‘peace’ than ‘justice’ in most advanced European countries and the US.
2/ However, regrettably, the author’s generalizations re what “NATO countries and the US understand” is questionable:
3/ ‘Going into this war,’ most Europeans and Americans were simply ignorant of the long-term ‘NATO expansion’ and ‘Donbas’ factors that made Russian invasion likely.
4/ Western news coverage has not changed #3, which is conventionally ridiculed as ‘Russian propaganda’ vs .the “unprovoked Russian aggression” narrative.
5/ Therefore, although Ukraine news is not as lock-step as in the first months of the war, western anti-war movements presently remain weak overall…
6/ …with the result that – for the present – western ‘war fatigue’ appears driven more by high gasoline prices than by anti-war themes of NATO expansion, the absence of national self-interest in this ‘forever war,’ and – in the absence of national self-interest – the outrage of killing citizens of two countries and enriching weapons makers while safety nets crumble and the planet burns.
Good luck with that. The US electorate is reaping the results of decades of failure to control its government and to allow ignorant, greedy, power-hungry incompetents to run it. They have lost control of the government – if they ever had it – and thus this situation must run its course, regardless of the consequences.
Perhaps war fatigue has reached the US? According to a CNN poll, 52% of respondents disapproved of “the way Joe Biden is handling the situation in Ukraine.” https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/18/politics/cnn-poll-joe-biden-economy-us/index.html